


You Didn't Want to Talk About It

by darth_meg



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Awkward Kissing, Brooding, Campfires, F/M, Fenris Has Issues, God I Love Fenris, God Ships It, Hurt, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kissing, Post-A Bitter Pill, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Sort of Not Established Relationship, Sweet, Trauma, so much consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 10:36:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11079816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darth_meg/pseuds/darth_meg
Summary: He must have realized, at some point, that she was waiting for him. He didn't want her to. He wanted her to find someone better, someone stronger, someone less broken. He did not realize for a long time, that Hawke had decided. But she never forgot thatshewas the one that pushed him up against a wall.Now she waits.





	You Didn't Want to Talk About It

It is past midnight and the fire is low. The others lie asleep and Fenris keeps watch, which consists primarily of brooding into the dying fire.  
  
Fenris turns his head as Hawke stirs in her blankets. She sits up slowly, squinting into the firelight, drags a hand over her face in exhaustion.  
  
“No sleep?”  
  
Hawke nods at him wearily. She injured her shoulder earlier in the day, and though Anders has put the pieces back together, her entire body aches from the day’s adventures.  
  
“Ugh,” is all she says for a moment, eyes closed, head in her hands.  
  
Fenris looks away. With Hawke awake beside him, a familiar ease settles over him. Hawke shuffles around her pile of blankets, grabs her bag and crawls toward him with a grumpy, tired expression on her face. She plops down next to him, digs through her bag to retrieve the brown bottle of piss she calls booze, and offers it to him. He closes his eyes and takes a quick pull.  
  
“I hate this,” he says, grimacing as he hands the bottle back to her.  
  
“Y’ didn’t have to drink it.”  
  
“Mhm.”  
  
They don’t speak for a while, Fenris sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, Hawke poking the fire with one hand and throwing back a few gulps of the booze with the other.  
  
_How strange the world is_ , he thinks. _That this quiet, gentle moment finds room to exist among the chaos _.__  
  
In the corner of his eye he catches her looking at him, and when he turns to face her she turns quickly away, resuming her poking routine. He smiles as the embers jump lazily in the fire.  
  
“What?” she says disinterestedly, dragging the stick through the ashes.  
  
“Nothing,” he says, shifting to a cross-legged position, “just caught you looking.”  
  
“Pfft,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Want a trophy?”  
  
He laughs softly, folding his hands in his lap. They are silent for a long time.  
  
Fenris is not bothered by silence, as a rule, but he has never felt just as comfortable saying nothing as talking to someone, until Hawke. They have spent hours talking together, and nearly as many just sitting silently in each other’s company. The warm fire guarded against the cool spring chill, and Hawke’s company put him at ease, in a way that did not make much sense to him.  
  
He feels her looking at him again. He glances up slowly, meeting her gaze. She does not look away.  
  
“What is it?” he says slowly, watching her carefully. Her face is sad, her lips parted like she wants to speak.  
  
After a brief moment of searching she says, “It’s, just. . . it’s. . .” She trails off, shaking her head trying to find words but not breaking her gaze. She swallows and seems to hold her breath, before exhaling in a sigh and looking down.  
  
He feels the weight of it settle among them. They’ve never spoken of it. Not directly.  
  
He’s hurt her.  
  
He knew he would. Knew he would hurt her when he ran, but she’d forget and things would be better in the long run. She’d find someone better, someone capable of loving her, someone who deserved her love. That’s what he’d told himself.  
  
He sees now that things have not happened that way.  
  
He remembers months ago at the Hanged Man, a night like so many others, in which many of them played cards and drank garbage alcohol. Isabela had been pressuring Hawke for the lewd details on the man she’d spent the night with. Hawke had been reluctant to say anything, and her eyes had flashed occasionally up at Fenris. She had seemed. . . not ashamed, but certainly uncomfortable, almost sad. Fenris had focused intensely on the cards in his hand. He remembers Hawke affirming to Isabela that she wouldn’t be seeing the man again, and that his company had only been the result of loneliness. Their eyes had met for half a second.  
  
“Hawke.”  
  
She meets his eyes. He realizes he doesn’t know what to say.  
  
She is waiting for him. He must have realized, at some point, that she was waiting for him. He didn't want her to. He wanted her to find someone better, someone stronger, someone less broken. He did not realize for a long time, that Hawke had decided. But she never forgot that _she _was the one that pushed him up against a wall.__  
  
Now she waits. Looking at him quizzically, now.  
  
He breathes deeply, and searches the ground before him as if it will give him the words.  
  
The faintest hint of a touch grazes his chin, tilts his head up toward Hawke’s face. She has barely touched him with her fingertips, she is gazing, so calmly into his eyes. There is only the weak crackling of the fire and the quiet creaking of insects in the night.  
  
He feels her fingertips fall from his chin as he stares back at her. She will not look away.  
  
“Hawke,” his voice comes out a whisper.  
  
She just waits, her eyes calm, inviting him to say something, her lips slightly parted, waiting.  
  
He wants to kiss her. He feels like such a fool and he wants to kiss her but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to ask her. Doesn’t know how to begin. Doesn’t want to mess it up.  
  
That night so long ago, there had been kissing – lips, necks, ears. . . But it was not like this. They had not looked into each other’s eyes. It all happened so desperately, so frantically, so passionately. . .  
  
The memory of that night stirs his blood and quickens his heart and he whispers like a complete fool, “I want to kiss you.”  
  
She smiles a hint of a smile, “Okay.”  
  
He must be doing something wrong. This isn’t how it happened the last time at all. Surely this is wrong because there are long pauses and silences and she says nothing, only waits, with her small smile and her soft eyes, hands in her lap. She initiates nothing – only invites him with her eyes.  
  
He stumbles, his voice barely audible, “Would. . . would you like me to kiss you?”  
  
Hawke smiles again, wider this time, and nods her head slightly. “Yes, I would,” she says quietly.  
  
Fenris swallows and nods at her, feeling like the biggest fool in Thedas. He just looks at her for a moment. She wants him to kiss her. He wants to kiss her. He rebukes himself for needing to add everything together like simple arithmetic.  
  
She waits.  
  
He isn’t sure, but slowly he leans his head toward her. His heart races and he feels like a fool but he knows that this is Hawke, whom he trusts absolutely. She smiles as he leans forward but doesn’t move a muscle. He glances at her parted lips and back to her calm eyes once more before leaning forward to press his lips to hers.  
  
He doesn’t move his lips, not like that first time – he waits and keeps still, because he is afraid and he is not sure and has never done this and surely he is doing it wrong –  
  
And there it is again, the barest graze of fingertips on his chin.  
  
He is overwhelmed with emotion and suddenly feels as if he could cry. He opens his lips and presses further into her mouth, and his heart is racing but he knows that this, this kiss is Hawke and slow and so, so safe.  
  
That night had been so desperate and overwhelming, and he had not remembered the shape of her mouth, but he remembers it now. He presses his tongue against her bottom lip, which is ragged from her constantly chewing on it with worry, onto her bottom teeth, one of which is slightly crooked and out of place, onto her soft, slow tongue which tastes of her disgusting booze and he closes his lips around hers and she is finally kissing him back. Her fingertips on his chin slide upward and she is cupping his cheek now, stroking his skin with her thumb while they learn each other’s mouths, breathing in each other’s scents.  
  
His body is reacting and he shies reflexively in shame. Never in his life has he felt safe when this happens, when his heart races and his blood rushes this way. But he must remember it is Hawke, and her thumb is stroking his cheek and she is kissing him back with the pace he sets and she is taking from him nothing but what he offered freely.  
  
It has never been this way.  
  
Oh, he never wants it to end.  
  
They kiss for a long time, before Fenris hovers over her lips, his breath a little short, leaning his forehead against hers. Hawke’s breath is short, too, and she is smiling.  
  
If he didn’t know what to say before, he knows even less what to say now.  
  
Hawke speaks first. “That was . . . nice.” She smiles on the last word, as if she has understated it.  
  
He doesn’t know the right thing to say. “Yes,” he says weakly.  
  
Their foreheads still rest together and they are silent as they catch their breaths a moment.  
  
“You’re a good kisser,” she says quietly, an impish smile on her face.  
  
He feels the tension ease as their sarcastic dynamic resumes, and his mouth twitches in a smile. “I want a trophy.”  
  
Her hand slides down his face to grip his shoulder lightly. They do not move and they say nothing.  
  
Hawke has always been merciful. “We can talk about it later, if you want,” she whispers.  
  
He closes his eyes and sighs in relief. He has no idea what to say. No idea how to tell her how she has made him feel. How foolish he’s been, how weak, how afraid. How grateful he is. He has no idea how to tell her what she means to him. That she is the most important thing that has ever happened to him.  
  
“We shall.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I haven't written fanfiction in a very long time, and I appreciate you reading my work!


End file.
